Infelice Part 54

"Will you be so kind as to lend me twenty-five dollars, until I receive my remittance?"

His eyes fell beneath her timidly pleading gaze, and a deep flush of embarra.s.sment pa.s.sed over his face.

"That depends upon the use you intend to make of it. If you desire to run away from me, I am afraid you must borrow of some one else. Do you wish to pay your pa.s.sage to Europe?"

"Oh no! I wish that I could. You allow me no such comforting hope."

"What do you want with it?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Because you know that your object is improper?"

"No, sir; but you would not understand my motives."

"Try me."

"I will not I hoped you would have sufficient confidence in me to grant my request without demanding my reasons."

"I have confidence in the purity of your motives. I do not question the goodness of your heart, or the propriety of your intentions; but I gravely doubt the correctness of your youthful judgment. Do not force me to refuse you such a trivial thing. Tell me your purpose."

"No, sir."

A proud grieved look crossed her delicate features.

He walked away, reached the door, then came back for one of his gloves which had fallen on the rug.

"Mr. Palma."

"Well, Miss Orme."

"Trust me."

He looked down into her beautiful sad eyes, and his heart began to throb fiercely.

"Lily, I will."

"Some day I will explain everything."

"When do you want the money?"

"To-morrow morning, if you please."

"At breakfast you will find it in an envelope under your plate."

"Thank you, sir. It is for----"

"Hush! Tell me nothing till you tell me all. I prefer to trust you entirely, and I shall wait for the hour when no concealment exists between us; when your secret thoughts are as much my property as my own. Less than that will never content your exacting guardian, but that hour is very distant."

She took his hand and pressed her soft lips upon it, ere he could s.n.a.t.c.h it away.

"G.o.d grant that hour may come speedily."

"Amen, Lily. You look strangely worn and ill; and your eyes are distressingly elfish and shadowy. Go to sleep, little girl, and forget that you forced me to be stem and harsh. Remember that your guardian, in defiance of his judgment, trusts you fully--entirely."

He turned quickly and quitted the library before she could reply, and soon after, hearing the street door close, she knew he had gone to Mrs. Tarrant's.

CHAPTER XXII.

The letter which Regina wrote that night was earnest, almost pa.s.sionate, in its appeal that she might be permitted to join her mother; yet no hint of the _bete noire_ of the square darkened its contents, for the writer felt that only face to face, eye to eye, could she ask her mother that fearful question, upon which all her future peace depended.

Having sealed and addressed the envelope, she extinguished the light, and tried to find in sleep that blessed oblivion which nature mercifully provides for aching hearts and heavily laden brains; but about three o'clock she heard the carriage at the front door, the voices of the trio ascending the stairs, and once a ringing triumphant laugh which was peculiarly Olga's, then all grew still in the house, and quiet in the street.

Unable to compose herself, tossing restlessly on her bed, with hot throbbing temples and a sore heart Regina wearily listened for the low silvery strokes of the clock, and when it announced half-past three she began to long for daylight.

Suddenly, although warned by not even the faintest sound, she became aware that she was not alone; that a human being was breathing the same atmosphere. Starting into a sitting posture she exclaimed:

"Who is there?"

"Hush! I am no burglar. Don't make a noise."

Simultaneously she heard the stroke of a match, and a small wax taper was lighted and held high over Olga's head, showing her tall form enveloped in a cherry-coloured dressing-gown and shawl. Stepping cautiously across the floor, she lighted one of the gas burners, placed the taper on the bureau, and came to the bedside.

"Make room for me. I am cold, my feet are like ice."

"What is the matter? Has anything happened?"

"Nothing particularly new or strange. Something happens every hour, you know; people are born, bartered--die and are buried; lives get blackened and hearts bleed and are trampled by human hoofs, until they are crushed beyond recognition. My dear, civilization is a huge cheat, and the Red Law of Savages in primeval night is worth all the tomes of jurisprudence, from the Pandects of Justinian to the Commentaries of Blackstone, and the wisdom of c.o.ke and Story. Oh halcyon days of prehistoric humanity! When instead of bowing and smiling, and chatting gracefully with one's deadliest foe, drinking his Amontillado and eating his truffles, people had the sublime satisfaction of roasting his flesh and calcining his bones, for an antediluvian _dejeuner a la fourchette_,--(only, to escape anachronism) _sans fourchette!_ What a pity I have not the privilege of _la belle sauvage_, far away in some cannibalistic nook of pagan Polynesia."

She was sitting with the bedclothes drawn closely over her, and Regina could scarcely recognize in the pale, almost haggard face beside her the radiant, laughing woman who had seemed so dazzling a few hours before, as she burned away in her festive robes.

"Olga, you talk like a heathen."

"Of course. To be sincere, unselfish, honest, and womanly is nowaday inevitably heathenish. I wish I had a nose as flat as a buckwheat cake, and lips three inches thick, with huge bra.s.s rings dangling from them both! And for raiment, instead of Worth's miracles, a mantle of featherwork, or a deerskin cut into fringe, and studded with blue gla.s.s beads! Civilization is a gibing impostor, and religion is laughing in its sacerdotal sleeves at its own unblushing----"

"Hush, Olga! You are blasphemous. No wonder you shiver while you talk. New York is full of n.o.ble Christians, of generous charming people, and there must be some wickedness everywhere. Don't you know that G.o.d will ultimately overrule all, and evangelize the world?"

"_Peut-etre!_ But I have not even the traditional grain of mustard seed to sow; and I might answer you as Laplace once did: '_Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothese_.'"

"Had you a pleasant evening at Mrs. Tarrant's?" asked Regina, anxious to change the topic.

"Wonderfully brilliant, and quite a topaz success. I sparkled, blazed, and people complimented profusely (criticizing _sotto voce_), and envied openly; and when I bowed myself out at last, I felt like Sir Peter Teazle on quitting Lady Sneerwell's: 'I leave my character behind me.' Mamma was charmed with me, and Mr. Silas Midas looked proud possession, as if he had in his vest pocket a bill of sale to every pound of my white flesh,--and Mr. Erle Palma smiled as benignly as some cast-iron statue of Pluto, freshly painted white, and glistening in the sunshine. _A propos!_ I asked him to-night if he would loosen his martinet rein upon you, and permit you to make your _debut_ in society as my bridesmaid? How those maddening white teeth of his glittered, as he smiled approvingly at the proposition?

Whenever they gleam out, they remind me of a tiger preparing to crunch the bones of a tender gazelle, or a bleating lamb. Now you comprehend what brings me here at this unseasonable hour? Armed with your n.o.ble guardian's sanction, I crave the honour of your services as bridesmaid at my approaching nuptials. Your dress, dear, must be gentian-coloured silk to match your eyes, and clouded over with _tulle_ of the same hue, relieved by sprays of gentians with silver leaves glittering with icicles, and you shall look on that occasion as lovely as an orthodox Hebrew angel; or, what is far more stylish, beautiful as ox-eyed Here poised above Olympos, watching old Zeus flirt surrept.i.tiously with Aphrodite! Will you be first bridesmaid?"

"No, I will not be your bridesmaid. I could never co-operate in the unhallowed scheme of wedding a man whom you despise. Oh, Olga! do not degrade yourself by such a mercenary traffic."